Yet another piece on the music industry and the continued drop in CD sales.
Here is Ben Sisario's piece in the NYT.
What gets us specifically is this:
"Now it's the end of summer, beginning of fall, and there's still a lot of movement," Mr. Gyger said, citing U2's recent delay of a new album that had been expected for the fall. "For something as big as U2, that obviously makes a huge difference in the planning when we don't have a massive release like that."
This is what it has come to? One artist, one album, make or break? REALLY NOW?
During the heyday of NYCD, our fine, now-defunct retail establishment, it was always nice to have a big release for the holidays. But we never relied on one artist or one release to turn our fourth quarter, or any quarter into a success. We made money because we sold CDs...by everyone.
John Lennon and Frank Sinatra could rise from the dead and record an album of new Bob Dylan material and it would still rate little more than a few headlines and some blog posts. Without proper radio, mom-and-pop retailers who help sell the music, and an industry run by seasoned professionals and not some 20-something poseurs who think a Carrie Underwood ringtone is important, CDs will continue to be less popular than Joe Piscopo.
We also love how everybody's like, "Oh, vinyl is so popular now! Everybody loves vinyl! Woo hoo!"
Last year vinyl sold about a million units and CDs sold 500 million.
It's amazing that people whose job it is to sell more music are still deluded enough to think that one CD by one artist will change the habits which have been evolving for the last decade in music consumers. It's like they think a new U2 CD will come out and everyone who's been downloading music illegally since 2000, or getting their friends to hook them up with CD-Rs burned on their hard drives, not to mention all the people who simply don't care anymore, will suddenly rush back into their local music retailer -- assuming there still is one -- and start forking over $10-15 for CDs again and all will be well and good in the music biz. As if the last eight disastrous years for music sales were just an aberration caused by a lack of sufficient U2 product.